Stop telling people to pivot to AI safety, I beg you
Challenges popular career advice for developers interested in AI ethics and safety work.
AI Summary
An AI safety researcher argues against calls for more people to pivot into AI safety, citing a severe job shortage where talent supply significantly exceeds available positions.
Excerpt
Epistemic status: Feeling frustrated, and therefore somewhat uncharitable. I’m very frustrated with calls for people to “drop everything and pivot into AI safety” like this one. (See also this, this, this, this for recent calls for more people to go into AI safety; though my frustration was triggered by the Celeste's post.) There are far more talented people trying to get into AI safety than there are jobs for them.[1] MLAB 2, which I did in 2022, was already competitive to get into, at about 5%